The present invention relates to spools and packages for ribbon material, and particularly, to a spool for packaging ribbon cables in which a plurality of insulated magnet wire conductors are juxtaposed, in side by side relationship defining a generally rectangular cross-section.
Spools have long been used to package and otherwise handle magnet wire, cables and other filaments. While other packages have been devised in which the magnet wire is more or less laid in the package rather than spooled, spools and reels have become widely known in the magnet wire industry such that relatively standard sizes are used, and both high speed take-up and pay-out apparatus have been proposed and used, for many years.
However, ribbon cables pose new interesting problems for packaging. Ribbon cables are now being proposed by which an unlimited number of insulated conductors are disposed in a side to side relationship and bonded together to form a cable having a relatively thin elongated rectangular cross-section. Spooling such cables for handling and/or shipping, becomes a problem using conventional spools which have a barrel and two spaced apart flange portions. With such ribbon cable and conventional spools either a relatively small amount of cable is placed on each spool or the spools become larger in diameter than desired.
In an application where transposed ribbon cable is made by folding ribbon cable of the type above-described, either the take-up or pay-off spools must be mounted on a yoke and spindle and rotated both about the spindle and about a yoke axis which is generally perpendicular to the spindle. In these and other applications, the handling of relatively large spools is not desired.
It is therefore highly desirable to provide an improved spool or reel for handling and packaging ribbon material or a ribbon cable comprising an unlimited number of conductors in side by side relation bonded together and having a generally rectangular cross-section, an improved spool or reel by which an optimum amount of ribbon material or cable can be placed for handling or shipment without the size of the spool or reel becoming unmanageable in normal operations, an improved reel or spool for ribbon material or cable which generally has the exterior geometric configuration of conventional spools and reels, an improved spool or reel for ribbon material or cable on which a larger amount of ribbon material or cable can be placed for handling or shipment than with spools or reels of conventional construction, and an improved spool or reel by which ribbon material or cable of the type above-described can be wound about the barrel thereof between spaced apart flanges as with conventional spools and reels and still have all of the afore-mentioned desired features.